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Origin of the Movement- Zoe Quinn
Game developer Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni published online epose saying that she cheated on him with several members of the gaming industry. One of these men is Kotaku's Nathan Grayson.
credit to knowyourmeme.com for the information throughout all of the slides.
credit to knowyourmeme.com for the image. -
MudaneMatt Response
The following day, Youtuber MundaneMatt posted a reponse video to the breaking news as well as criticizing her game, Depression Quest. The video was later taken down by Quinn due to copyright. credit to digitalspy.com for the image. -
Quinnspiracy Theory
The next day after that, Youtuber Internet Aristocrat began publishing a series of videos to discuss the issue of cronyism in gaming media and the indie game development community. credit to allthegeek.gr for the image. -
Issues
This whole Quinn issue began making people questioning ethics in gaming journalism. Several Polygon, a video game website, writers came under scrutiny. Editor Ben Kuchera was revealed to have donated money to her Patreon account for weeks before writing an article about the game. Kotaku writer Patricia Hernandez came under fire when gamers began investigating her alleged relationships with video game developers. -
More Issues
Sound designer Robin Arnott was allegedly in an affair with Quinn and appeared as a judge in the Indiecade game competion, in which Quinn's game won an award.Thus, on this day, Kotaku editor Stephen Totlio said that Kotaku editors would not be allowed to supporty any Patreon accounts of game devlopers. Polygon also said that said all writers must disclose any contributions to any accounts.The stetements were regarded negatively by readers because of apparent sexism and misogyny. -
#GamerGate
Actor Adam Baldwin linked the Internet Aristocrat videos with the hashtag, #GamerGate. Within a week, it was retweeted over 244,000 times, and by November, it was up to 1.8 million, or 50,000 times a day.
credit to nickpartyka.com for Kotaku image. credit to vg247.com for polygon image.
credit to gamesnosh.com for this image. -
No More "Gamer" Culture
Gamergate spread like wildfire across the internet with thousands of people supporting the movement by perosnally attacking video game devolopers and journalists, some even with death threats, including feminist icon Anita Sarkeesian. On the 28th, many websites tried to end the gamer cultural identity, including, The Financial Post, Ars Technica, The Daily Beast, The Stranger, Beta Beat, Gamasutra, Polygon and Kotaku. -
Not Journalists
In fear of being attacked, many writers on various websites began to not call themselves journalists. credit to vox.com for the image -
GamerGate Harrassment Tumblr
The GamerGate Harrassment Tumblr was launched to chronicle the harrassment of gamers by those associated with the online social justice community. credit to gamerharrassmenttumblr.com -
Open Letter Sent Out
An open letter was sent out by numerous gaming jorunalists and companies trying to call and end to the movement and threatening of the people online. credit to giantbomb.com for the image. -
Boogie2988 Speaks
Popular Youtuber Boogie2988 posted a video on this day responding to accusations of bigotry toward those who support GamerGate. credit to tubechum.com for the image. -
#NotYourShield
Women and minorities who supported GameGate began using this hashtag to protest all of their criticisms in the gaming industry being ignored. On this day, Quinn came back and slammed the hashtag, caliming to spread disinformation. credit to knowyourmeme.com for the image. -
#GameOverGate
Quinn complied a series of screenshots from an IRC Chat claiming it as evidence that GamerGate was a conspiracy started by 4chan to get people to harass women and gaming journalists. Soon afterward, Quinn's followers started the hashtag #GameOverGate in order to make fun of the GamerGate Movement. credit to newmediarockstars.com for the image. -
Mislead Information?
The Escapist Magazine's co-founder, Alexander Macris visited the IRC Channel to cover their side of the story. Apparently, members of the channel said Quinn took the screenshots out of context to mislead viewers or were that the screenshots were written by trolls attempting to disrput the channel, who were then banned. credit to binghamton.edu for the image. -
Youtube Shield Project
Youtube Shield Project uploaded a video which was a montage of #NotYourShield members denouncing GamerGate critics. credit to avoiceformen.com -
"Are Video Games Sexist"
The American Enterprise Institute YouTube channel upload a video in their “Factual Feminist” series titled “Are video games sexist?”, During this same time, many celebrities who are gamers, such as Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Chris Kluwe made posts critical about GamerGate. Also, around this same time, various GamerGate supporters made an image of what they thought the radical feminist looks like.
credit to Forbes.com for the image. -
4Chan Takes Action
The forum website 4Chan, one of the websites were most of the posts from GamerGate came from, began deleting forum posts that mentioned GamerGate. On the 19th, 4Chan founder, Chrisopher Poole posted a message on why he began censoring the posts. This caused a mass exodus from many users from 4Chan to their rival website, 8Chan. credit to bits.blogs.nytimes.com -
Oppressed GamerGate
On this day, video game developer Brianna Wu tweeted an image macro series called, "Oppressed GamerGate" to criticize the GamerGate community. The following day, an an anonymous user on 8chan posted Wu’s address, phone number and email to the /gg/ (GamerGate) board. Some people denied this as a hoax, while other people threatened her online, giving her death threats.
credit to knowyourmeme.com for the image. -
Final Main Actions...For Now!
Sarkeesian cancelled a speech at Utah State University because they would not use metal detectors at the meeting because somebody posted death threats at her online. A tweet, #StopGamerGate2014 began emerging in response. MudaneMatt made a response saying the majority of GamerGaters were not like that while boogie2988 made a response trying to suggest a compromise.
credit to knowyourmeme.com for the image. -
DIGRA Speaks
The Digital Games Research Association, a company who focuses on digital games and activities, issued a statement condeming the GamerGate movement and the harrassment that the supporters made. credit to archives.igda.org for the image.
